Blogging the San Diego Padres… established 1997

Youngsters and Salary Dumps

We’ve been tracking a few key young players since the All-Star break using Modified Box Scores (explanation). Let’s see how these kids are doing as measured by more conventional metrics. Bear in mind that we’re talking about 31 games, a tiny sample. First, the Padres as a team:

Padres Offense, First and Second Half

PA

BA

OBP

SLG

R/G

First half

3344

.233

.311

.370

3.80

Second half

1182

.268

.340

.427

4.10

And select youngsters:

Padres Individual Hitters, First and Second Half

PA

BA

OBP

SLG

Blanks

99

.289

.404

.578

Venable

97

.295

.361

.523

Headley

118

.328

.407

.462

Cabrera

134

.287

.374

.478

Gwynn

118

.252

.310

.299

I included Tony Gwynn Jr. here so you can see what “regressing to the mean” looks like. It took a while because of his hot start, but Gwynn’s OPS+ for the season has fallen below 100. Since the U-T’s Chris Jenkins worked himself into a lather over Junior after the latter’s first 21 games with the Padres, Gwynn is hitting .261/.320/.320, which is basically David Eckstein in a bad year or, going back a little further, Darren Lewis.

Meanwhile, we know how hot Kyle Blanks and Will Venable have been, but without much fanfare, Chase Headley steadily has settled into a comfort zone. And Everth Cabrera still isn’t playing like a Rule V draftee.

Anecdote time: In one of the St. Louis games (Friday or Saturday), Cabrera slid into first trying to beat out a grounder for a base hit. Ordinarily I hate that play, but sometimes it’s appropriate, such as when trying to avoid a tag, which is exactly what Cabrera was doing. He slid to the outside of the bag and almost snuck past Albert Pujols. It is only one play, and it may not count for a lot, but it suggested an understanding of the game beyond what we might expect from a kid fresh out of the South Atlantic League.

I’m kind of smitten with Cabrera. Does it show?

That reminds me, Cabrera has performed much better this year batting lower in the order:

Everth Cabrera, Top and Bottom of Lineup

PA

BA

OBP

SLG

Batting 1st

107

.185

.286

.272

Batting 8th

74

.344

.425

.516

I can think of at least two reasons this should not deter Bud Black from leading him off:

Small sample

Cabrera’s future lies at the top of the order; he might as well get comfortable there now, when the games don’t count for much

Returning to the Padres’ recent offensive onslaught, I should note that it coincides with the installation of Randy Ready as hitting coach. Well, sort of; Ready didn’t arrive on the scene until August. This month, the team is hitting .296/.367/.449, although the usual small sample caveats apply. Also, I say that the surge coincides with Ready’s arrival because all we know is that two events occurred at the same time. We don’t know why or if there is any causal relationship.

That said, here’s something I’ve wondered about for some time: What, if any, effect does a change in hitting coaches have on young players? We saw a similar second-half surge in 2006, when Merv Rettenmund replaced Dave Magadan. In the case of Adrian Gonzalez, he continued to improve even beyond the initial boost; in the cases of Josh Barfield and Khalil Greene, not so much.

This is anecdotal evidence, though, and not a proper study. I’m not sure how you even go about answering such a question. Beyond the sample size issues (how confident are we about a player’s true level of ability after so few plate appearances?), there is the matter of isolating the “change in hitting coach” variable versus, say, an increase in playing time, natural development, and a variety of other factors.

In other words, Barfield’s improvement in the second half of 2006 might have been related to Rettenmund’s arrival as hitting coach. Then again, he might have blossomed under Magadan as well. We will never know.

* * *

Should it bother me that Luis Rodriguez ranks third on the team with 30 walks?

* * *

I’ve been thinking about this year’s trades, er, salary dumps. Okay, Cla Meredith for Oscar Salazar was a straight swap of spare parts, but every other move has been made with the intent of trimming the payroll. Interestingly, the Padres haven’t taken a performance hit in the process:

I won’t claim that these deals were made to improve the on-field product, but at the same time, you have to look at the evidence. If I’m Kevin Towers and someone calls me to task for dumping salary, I’m pointing to the scoreboard… and hoping nobody notices that Peavy hasn’t pitched yet for his new team.

* * *

Modified Box Scores

Here are your boxes…

Positives: Cabrera, Headley, and Venable all had solid weeks; Hundley came off the DL.
Negatives: Latos got shelled in St. Louis; too much Gwynn, not enough Blanks.

The Padres knock 22 hits — second most in franchise history. They’ve had 24 in a game twice (April 19, 1982, against the Giants; August 12, 2003, at the Braves). Adrian Gonzalez leads the charge with a 6-for-6 showing.

There have been 23 individual five-hit nine-inning games in Padres history. Two came this past week in Milwaukee. This marks the third time the Padres have had multiple five-hit games in a season: they had four in 1993 (one by Tim Teufel, three by Tony Gwynn) and two in 1996 (Craig Shipley and Steve Finley).

Caught the tail end of this one. Yet another blown call, this time by first base umpire Dana DeMuth on a ball hit by Craig Counsell up the middle. Eckstein makes a terrific backhanded stab and throws to first for the final out of the seventh. DeMuth calls Counsell safe and the inning continues, with the Brewers scoring two more runs.

The key blow comes on a drive off the bat of Prince Fielder. He “doubles” over the head of Headley, who breaks directly across from left toward center field but forgets to go back, where the ball is hit. Headley jumps at the last moment, which proves as hilarious as it is ineffective.

Mike Adams and Heath Bell quell late threats to preserve the 6-5 victory. Bell gets Mike Cameron to pop out to third base on his third full-count fastball with a runner at third to end the game.

Latos was due for a good shelling, I actually think that it’s good for him and it will be interesting to see how he responds in his next start.

The only move that KT has made this year that I didnâ€™t like is the Hairston trade. It really seems like Hairston is one of the few Padres hitters who was never intimidated by Petco, and even though he was due to make more next year I donâ€™t think he would have broken the bank.

With Headley’s latest offensive surge I wonder if the Padres will feel comfortable enough to try and move Kouz before August 31. MLBTR reported that they placed both A-Gon and Bell on waivers but they didnâ€™t say anything about Correia or Kouz.

This will be an interesting off season. I would imagine that the Padres would have gotten more value for Bell and A-Gon at the trade deadline than this off season, so I wonder if they really do plan to keep them long term now that they got Peavy’s deal off the books.

Also it sounds like the Padres are close to Signing Tate today. If they sign Tate but donâ€™t sign Williams or Sampson do we still consider this a good high-upside draft year?

I was at Thursday’s game in Milwaukee. According to the Miller Park scoreboard, Carrillo’s fastball ranged from 87 to 96, which seemed about right to me. He definitely was able to dial it up at times, but his high-80′s fastballs looked like tater-bait to me (as well as to Brewer hitters, apparently).

Had the bittersweet experience of watching Hoffman come out to Hells Bells in a Brewer uni, and followed that game up with Cubs-Pirates at Wrigley on Saturday. Terrific seats at both ballparks, but I’m glad to be home, and ready to sit in my own seats at Petco.

Great work, Geoff! I must admit, I was a bit surprised to see that Gwynn Jr. really does not much of a clue as far as how to steal a base. If he can’t swipe a base on a consistent basis, then where exactly is his value? He plays good defense (not great) and has a decent stroke though often swings like he is a 15 to 20 home run guy, often pulling (off) the ball and weakly grounding out to the right side (which leads me to think – I can’t even recall Gwynn Jr. grounding out to the left side of the diamond). Mind you, there are times when he will indeed shorten up and spray the ball but clearly not as much as he needs to. Perhaps it is indeed a case of “never has and never will”.

It may be time to give Latos some extra rest. They scorched the ball off him last night.

Blanks is fun to watch. Miscast in right, but he’s alleviating concerns about being able to play left.

I don’t understand the Pythagorean comment either. That method (and various tweaks, like Pythag 1.83, PythagenPort, and PythagenPat) accurately predict team records. Teams rarely — very rarely — outperform or underperform what their RS/RA ratio suggests by more than a couple of games.